Strategies for the Development of New Products in the Spanish Agri-Food Industry

Abstract

The objective of this study is to identify the resources and strategies associated with the introduction of new products in the Spanish agri-food industry. The source of information used is the Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales, ESEE (Survey of Business Strategies). From this survey, innovation inputs and outputs have been extracted for the years 2000-2008. The results show that the efforts made by firms to invest in capital goods, R&D, and ICTs produced positive results. Nevertheless, little use has been made of other innovation resources such as technological cooperation with other businesses and/or institutions in the Spanish agri-food industry, and greater efforts in this direction would improve its competitive position. Moreover, while SMEs have made important efforts in recent years to adopt ICTs, there still remains a big gap between them and large firms. The efforts being made could lead to improvements in competiveness due to the positive impact of ICTs on economic growth and on productivity.